


you fell away from me (and oh how it's tragic)

by echoes_of_realities



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, mostly just angst, set sometime before season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 00:36:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10651359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echoes_of_realities/pseuds/echoes_of_realities
Summary: When she gets to the hospital, the nurses let her up to the palliative floor without saying anything. And she can see what it is right away, the way they avoid her gaze and the pity on their faces.Her abuela is dying and they can’t do anything for her.





	you fell away from me (and oh how it's tragic)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, I’ve been working on a much longer piece over the last couple months in between schoolwork, and so this is the first thing I’ve written that’s not for that. But this piece kinda crawled out of me, and is very personal. My grandma was admitted to hospital on March 23, and I ended up missing the last two weeks on university in order to be with her until she passed on April 4 and then attend her funeral. And between funeral arrangements and trying to finish up the 5 assignments for the end of term and defer (and then study for) exams so I could learn two weeks of class in about two days, I haven’t felt like writing much. In fact, I haven’t felt like doing much of anything. A couple of my deferred exams ended up right over Easter weekend, so I can’t even be with any of my family after everything that's happened. 
> 
> I wrote an exam at 8am today, and so I took long break before I sat down to study for my next exam, except instead of studying for bio, this ended up being pulled out of me. It’s rather… Unedited. And kinda raw. And also in a format I don't usually write in. But I’ve always related far too much with Amy, and so she was the unlucky character to be used as a conduit. 
> 
> The title is kind of adapted from a line in Shane Koyczan's poem "Move Pen Move" which is beautifully sad and helped me through those the first days a lot.

It’s 2:37am when she gets the call, the too bright lights of the precinct shining down on her and Jake drooling and snoring on his desk.

She somehow knows, even before she looks at the caller id, that it’s not good. So she lets the phone ring, and ring, and ring, until it almost vibrates off the desk. It’s only right before she knows it will go to voicemail that she finally picks up.

She doesn’t speak for a long moment, and the shuddering breath on the other end tells her just about all she needs to know. Finally, she acknowledges the person on the other side, and she feels like she’s aged about twenty years in the twenty seconds since her phone first started ringing. 

“Hello?”

The voice sucks in a breath that sounds more sob than anything. “Ames?” The always strong voice of her oldest brother wavers in a way she’s never heard before, not even when he fell out of the tree in their backyard and stared blankly at the bone sticking out of his lower leg before shakily telling her to go find mamá. “It’s time.”

She releases a shuddering breath in response. 

She can picture him, standing in the cramped area between the hospital door their abuela’s room, the curtain closed in attempts to shield her from the death hanging in the room, bridge of nose pinched between two fingers and glasses pushed partially up his forehead, the side of his palm smudging the already filthy lens.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

There’s a long pause before Ed speaks again. “Hurry, Ames, I’m not sure— I don’t know if you’ll get here before—” 

“I’ll be there.” She responds, sounding even less confident than she feels.

When she hangs up, it’s to see Jake staring at her across their desks, his chin still resting on his arms. His face is softer than she’s ever seen it, eyes so warm and it makes her throat tighten up. 

She swallows past the lump and stands. “I have to go.”

He just nods, his entire back moving with its force, voice quiet. “Of course.”

“I don’t know when—” she takes a deep breath and collects her things, dropping her phone in her purse and pulling out her keys, clutching them so tightly they bite into her palms and she sways, just a little, “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

Jake sits up a little. “Of course,” he repeats in that same low voice. “If you need anything,” he says, the offer trailing off.

She nods and takes one shaky step, and then tries to remember how to walk, how to breath.

“Take care,” he murmurs as she passes. 

She watches his face as the elevator doors close, and can’t help but feel that something in her will never be the same again.

 

* * *

 

When she gets to the hospital, the nurses let her up to the palliative floor without saying anything. And she can see what it is right away, the way they avoid her gaze and the pity on their faces.

Her abuela is dying and they can’t do anything for her.

 

* * *

 

The elevator ride to the sixth floor is the longest forty-five seconds in her life. A patient rocks back and forth in her wheelchair behind her, both legs in casts and cigarette smoke clinging to her like a second skin. She gets off on the fourth floor with a wide grin and wink, and Amy tries to ignore the stifling silence of the late night.

 

* * *

 

She pushes the door open as quietly as she can. The first thing she notices is the breathing. One ragged breath in, a fifteen second too long silence, and then a shaky breath out. It’s painful to listen to, and she’s glad that she had to work the last day and a half when abuela first started to slip away.

Guilt claws at her edges for that thought.

Part of her family is surrounding the bed where her abuela lays, head turned towards the window and the moonlight. 

_She looks too small_ , Amy thinks, because the abuela of her memory is larger than life with a loud laugh like a welcoming hug. 

Ed is sitting on the chair beside the bedside table, his glasses fogged up and head hung low, hand rubbing small circle’s on abuela’s upper arm. Her papá stands beside him, one hand on Ed’s shoulder and the other arm around their mamá. Fico sits alone on the other side, midway between abuela’s head and legs, both hands desperately clutching the weathered hand that taught them to play cards and to sew and dance. She can tell that he’s barely holding it together; she can also tell that he’s feeling abuela’s pulse, breathing a silent prayer every time it throbs against his fingertips. 

The curtain squeaks as she closes it behind her, and Fico looks up at her with relief. Ed and mamá barely stir, but papá releases his hold on mamá for a second to clasp her shoulder briefly, allowing her to pass to the other side of the bed and the empty chair beside Fico. 

Abuela’s face shines white in the moonlight, mouth open and breathing death-tinted air upon Amy’s face as she kisses her forehead, settling into the chair with one hand on Fico’s arm and the other stroking abuela’s forehead.

They sit like that for a long time. Listening as the pauses between abuela’s breathes grow longer and longer, eyes unable to look away from the beloved face that is no longer struggling to live, but rather struggling to pass.

 

* * *

 

“She’s gone,” Fico whispers about twenty minutes after Amy’s arrival.

“Are you sure?” her mamá asks, and Amy knows that no matter how long she lives she will never forget the way her mamá’s voice broke.

“Yes,” Fico says, voice cracking halfway through the one syllable.

Mamá lets out a gut-wrenching sob, and flings herself into papá’s arms, who barely catches his wife through the tears streaming down his own face.

Amy glances up, blinking away tears, before glancing once more at the still face of abuela, eyes closed and skin pale, and a sob wracks her body before she even realizes what is happening. Fico drops from his chair to his knees and presses the limp hand of abuela to his head, muttering under his breath.

Ed turns his body away from the bed, standing and taking halting steps to the door, and she knows that he doesn’t want his last memory of abuela to be the shell of the woman they once knew.

Amy keeps stroking abuela’s forehead, fearing that once she stops, abuela will truly be gone.

 

* * *

 

“I’ll call Rafi,” she offers, surprised at how gravelly her voice is.

Ed nods, voice quiet, “I’ll call the twins.”

Fico coughs harshly, and swipes at his face with near violence, “I’ll do Herbie and Manolo.”

They move away from each other, hands shaking and hearts trembling. She dials Rafi’s number and waits.

Rafi picks up on the second ring, which is unusual for him, and she wonders how much sleep he’s gotten since abuela was admitted to hospital last week.

Probably about as much as she has.

“Ames?” His voice reminds her of when she was twelve and he was four and his tiny hands had desperately clutched the back of her shirt as thunder boomed overhead; back before he grew up, before the world turned him hard.

She takes a breath to steel herself, but nothing could have prepared her for the sound of Rafi’s breath rattling out of his chest, so similar to abuela’s for the last forty minutes of her life.

“Abuela’s gone,” she whispers, and then listens helplessly as a gasping sob reaches her ears.

 

* * *

 

The nurse declares her dead about fifteen minutes after she passed.

The stethoscope is cold against abuela’s chest, Amy knows, and a part of her wants to scream at the nurse for making abuela uncomfortable, and another part of her wants to shove the nurse out of the way and curl up beside abuela’s side to keep her warm.

The strongest part of her wants to break down and beg the nurse to bring her abuela back.

The nurse turns to them. “I’m so sorry,” she says, and then slips from the room as quietly as she came.

And just like that, her abuela is officially dead.

 

* * *

 

They just leave her there in the hospital, alone. Which seems harsh to Amy, but then again, what does she know about a clean death?

She always sees the violent ones, the struggles, the ones where she remains with the body until its being taken away from where the person died.

She’s never seen someone take their last breath with a small smile.

 

* * *

 

She finally sleeps that night, for the first time since abuela was admitted to hospital.

She wonders about that, as she’s drifting off.

Wonders about the lack of tears.

 

* * *

 

The next day is disturbingly normal. The sun rises, the cars honk, she has about ten too many texts from Jake.

Terry is understanding, as always, and she again has to fight the lump in her throat when he insists he handle all paperwork and deal with Captain Stintley himself.

They meet the funeral director at 11:30am, eight and a half hours after abuela’s last breathe. All of her other brothers make it there, the ones who live out of town all file into the room, one by one. Papá’s siblings live a couple hours away and so they designate him as the funeral planner, partially because he is the oldest and abuela’s power of attorney, but mostly because they couldn’t handle it.

Luís and Andrés don’t wear their signature smirks, Herbie and Manolo arrive together with bright red eyes, and Rafi enters by himself, as usual, except he pulls his chair as close as possible to Amy around the crowded table and doesn’t object to the arm around his shoulder for the first time since he was about nine.

The meeting goes by in a whirl, and before Amy knows it they’re past listing abuela’s parents and birthplace and are standing in a cramped room picking out a coffin. Her brothers are more subdued than she’s ever seen them, and they don’t even try to argue over papá’s choice.

 

* * *

 

Lunch is weird.

She doesn’t have much of an appetite, but mamá insists she eat, even though everything sort of tastes like cardboard. 

No one knows that the large family at the table beside theirs just lost a part of their heart, and while on one hand Amy wants to shout at them for being so… _normal_ , she also wants to bury her head under the table where no one can see and never come out.

 

* * *

 

“I mean, I’m kinda glad she did go, you know?”

Amy nods and shoves her hands deeper into her pockets, looking up at one of her not so little brothers anymore. 

“So am I.” Amy’s breath streams out in a white cloud, and her glasses fog up as she buries her nose into her scarf. “She was in so much pain, and yet,” she trails off.

She sees Fico nod out of the corner of her eye. “She wouldn’t have wanted to live like that, confined to a bed for the rest of her life, but,” he also trails off. 

They pause on a bridge. The park is rather empty; no one in their right mind is out in this weather, which is probably while Amy decided to take a long walk.

“But she was our abuela,” she finally agreed.

 

* * *

 

The funeral is planned for five days after abuela’s death, and two days after the wake starts.

Amy wishes it was sooner, if only so abuela’s body wouldn’t be so alone at the funeral home for too long.

 

* * *

 

Ed and Rafi can’t bear to go up to the casket during the viewing; Amy can’t bear not to.

From a certain angle it looks like abuela is smirking, and Amy can’t help but smile tearily at that. It’s not until mamá walks up to her with a hand on her shoulder while she stands at the casket, trying desperately to memorize abuela’s face and trying desperately not to, that a tear slips down her cheek.

Mamá wraps an arm around her and Amy rests her temple against mamá’s head.

“I’m going to miss her so much.”

“I know, mija. I will too.” 

Amy nods against mamá’s head. 

And then she sobs.

 

* * *

 

Jake met her abuela twice, and both times were disasters; yet he still managed to charm the pants of her both times.

He wears a suit to the funeral and holds her hand on the way to the lunch when that damn lump is back in her throat. He jokes lightly at the lunch, and she laughs for the first time in what feels like years. 

After that first giggle, it feels like a dam opens and she starts to feel things again. Her brothers finally pull chuckles out of her and the tribute video Manolo puts together makes her laugh and cry in the same breath.

 

* * *

 

Her nylons itch all throughout the lunch. They are somehow both too small and too big and she thinks that, somewhere, abuela is laughing at her, eyes crinkled with amusement as a more innocent and whole Amy insists that nylons for dance were ridiculous because _how are you supposed to move? They scratch and never stay up properly and abuela why are you laughing so hard it’s not funny!_

 

* * *

 

Jake leaves after the lunch, with a hug that smells of coffee and chocolate and feels like pure sunlight.

She doesn’t know how to express her thoughts, but she knows she’s so grateful that he’s her partner and best friend and somehow knows what she needs before she does.

“Jake—” she starts, the words muffled by his neck, but he interrupts her with a grin into her hair.

“Text me whenever you need to go out and get blackout drunk.”

She takes a deep breath, words of gratitude on the tip of her tongue, but instead settles on “You’re ridiculous, Peralta.”

She can tell he knows what she means.

 

* * *

 

She reads the obituary booklet more times than she probably should on the drive to the cemetery.

_Pallbearers are grandchildren Edmundo Santiago Álvarez, Amada Santiago Álvarez, Fernán Santiago Munoz, Rudi Santiago Munoz, Claudia Mesa Santiago, and Nestor Mesa Santiago._

The radio plays quietly and Rafi clutches her hand in the cramped backseat as they follow directly behind the hearse. Fico shifts beside her, before dropping his head to her shoulder with a sniffle. Ed glances back at her from where he sits, squished between Herbie and Manolo, and offers the shadow of a grin. 

Fico sniffles beside her again, and she returns the small smile.

 

* * *

 

The casket isn’t particularly heavy, just awkward to carry. She steps on Ed’s heels for most of the way as she shuffles along slowly with her brother and cousins. They set the casket onto the lowering device and step back. She murmurs an apology for standing on abuelo’s grave, and wonders where the two of them are, and if they are finally dancing again.

Amy doesn’t say goodbye until the casket is halfway into the grave, because all throughout this it was so much easier to let abuela slip away than it was to say goodbye to her.

Goodbye feels so permanent, and she doesn’t think she’s quiet ready to handle permanent yet. She doesn’t know how to handle a world where her abuela isn’t just a phone call away.

 

* * *

 

Each immediate family member puts Cuban orchids on the casket before it’s lowered, and the moment feels far too profound for Amy to be anywhere close to comprehending it so she tucks the memory away into the deep corner of her mind where she can process it when she’s alone in her apartment and the night is turning from inky blackness to the faint hint of dawn.

Abuela always had orchids on every available surface when she could, and Amy thinks it’s both fitting and morbid that the orchids accompany abuela in her final resting spot.

 

* * *

 

She stands beside Manolo and Luís, Manolo’s head tucked into the crook of her neck, tears making the skin there itch and crawl, and Luís blowing his nose too loudly.

The rest of her brothers and their parents sprawl around the left side of the casket, mending into papá’s brother and his children, and then into papá’s sister and her children.

Amy catches Claudia’s eye over the sinking casket and they both let out a small sob at the same time.

 

* * *

 

They visit a small bar abuela worked in when she first immigrated. The ownership and interior have changed so much it’s probably unrecognizable from when abuela first stepped foot, but she had been such a permanent fixture that the new boss, even though he was younger than Amy herself, still knew and loved abuela.

The entire family’s drinks are on the house, and Amy can’t help but marvel at how much abuela was loved.

The beer tastes like cardboard though.

 

* * *

 

“She always had to pinch you underneath the chin, which is infinitely more painful than a cheek pinch,” Rudi says.

All of abuela’s grandkids chuckle, eyes misting and grip too strong on their beers.

“How did it get more painful the older you got?” Andrés asked. 

Luís shrugged beside him, “I think the pain faded from when we were young. Or we just choose not to remember.”

“Remember that antique vase she used to have?” Ed asks.

Fernán slaps his hand on his knee with a loud laugh. “The one you broke?”

“I resent that implication because, if I remember correctly, it was _your_ idea to play Star Wars.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen tío Victor so angry in my life.”

“I think the best part was that abuela couldn’t care less.”

“She told us that she’d been trying to get rid of _the damn thing since_ my _mamá forced it into my suitcase right before I boarded the ship_.”

“Ooh! Remember that scarf she knit Amy?”

“The one that made me break out in hives? How could I forget?”

“Abuela said you needed to get thicker skin.”

“What? I get cold easily and react to some types of wool, sue me.”

“If you get so cold easily why did you never wear shoes outside?”

“ _None,_ of us wore shoes outside, dummy.”

Claudia stood up, wrapping her cardigan around her shoulders and hunching her back, looking remarkably like a young abuela pretending to be an old abuela. “Don’t go barefoot, mijo, or you’ll catch a cold and _die_.”

The grandchildren burst into laughter that, had abuela been there, would have made her shake her head and grin.

 

* * *

 

Amy only gets five days of bereavement, plus the days she already had off, and so she returns to work before abuela’s apartment is fully cleaned out.

She wishes she could help more, though sprawling in the living room with her brothers and cousins and hundreds of old pictures had been weirdly cathartic in a way. Plus she got first dibs on abuela’s fancy dishes as the oldest granddaughter, which was kind of sexist, and she knew Herbie also really wanted them, but she had been wanting those pretty floral dishes since she could walk. 

So they are displayed in a small china cabinet in her dining room where she can see them everyday. 

It’s like having a small piece of abuela with her, or at least the memories of pretend tea parties using real china.

 

* * *

 

Work is also weird.

Rosa and Gina don’t treat her any different, for which she is immensely grateful; Terry offers her more bereavement time if she needs (even if he can’t technically do that); and Charles, sweet, oblivious Charles, brings her some very weird but touching dishes (even if she doesn’t eat any of them).

Jake distracts Charles with a wink so she can subtly dump whatever weird thing Charles brings her straight into the garbage.

 

* * *

 

It's been a week since abuela died and Amy can't help but wonder when exactly it will actually feel real.

 

* * *

 

She finds it hard to concentrate on anything, so her reports are turned in later than her usual punctual time and instead of editing them three times she only halfheartedly looks them over before handing them in.

She knows it will get eventually easier, but it’s only been a week and two days since she stroked abuela’s forehead as she drew her last breath.

 

* * *

 

Jake does get her blackout drunk about a week and a half after abuela died.

He takes good care of her, or at least, she thinks he does. The whole blackout part of being blackout drunk is rather accurate, she thinks the next morning while her entire head throbs.

But her apartment smells of pancakes and bacon and coffee and Taylor Swift plays over her commandeered bluetooth speaker and there’s a glass of cool water on her bedside table and a couple pills and she can’t help but think that Jake is the best partner in the world.

It'a the first time food doesn't taste like cardboard.

It’s also the first day she doesn’t cry.

 

* * *

 

She has had her abuela’s phone number memorized since she was about six. She still calls it a lot.

Sometimes it’s without thinking, without remembering that abuela’s body is in the coldcoldcold ground and she won’t pick up ever again; most times she is acutely aware of what she’s doing, of the fact that no matter how long it rings it will never be picked up. About two weeks after the funeral she calls and the line rings out of service. 

Somehow it’s worse than no one ever answering.

 

* * *

 

It’s three weeks after the funeral when Amy arrives home in the early afternoon, having actually finished work early for once.

The afternoon sun flits through the living room window and she kicks her shoes neatly off, hangs her jacket up, and is halfway to her bedroom when something in her makes her turn to see the coffee table.

It’s there, sitting in a beam of sunlight, that she sees an unassuming petal from a Cuban orchid laying there, as if it has a right to be, as if it’s been there forever.

Amy blinks quickly and a weight easies off her chest as she glances out the window, and she swears she can see abuela and abuelo swaying in each other’s arms, bodies restored to youth and smiles as bright as the sunbeam they dance in.

 

 


End file.
